Re: Gender in Pronouns
Saul Epstein 
Thu, 15 Oct 1998 21:19:40 -0500

I've encountered a new wrinkle. In the original ZC grammar, the
following appears next to the "it" pronouns, in the column otherwise
occupied by honorifics.

     "it" can have honorific form when applied to 'sexless'
     sentient phenomena

This makes it pretty clear that pronouns based on <n> were meant to
be only neuter, but either sentient or not. This could be used to
argue in favor of the second of my two solutions (or even to argue
that there isn't a problem).

At the same time, I think it's worth making the sentient-nonsentient
distinction at least as significant as the masculine-feminine-neither
distinction. It seems likely to me that Vulcans would consider
sentient entities, with or without gender, to have more in common
than either has with non-sentient entities (presumably always without
gender).

I guess my opinion is now perfectly balanced between what I'd prefer
from a philosophical point of view and my desire to preserve the
foundation. I encourage anyone who has an opinion on the subject to
express it. (Of course, I'd always like that, but in this case I seem
to be more than usually dependent on it.) Meanwhile I may start work
on the next section. ;-)

--
from Saul Epstein
locus*planetkc,com - www,planetkc,com/locus
"Surakri' ow'phahcur the's'hi the's'cha'; the's'phahrka
     the's'hi surakecha'."
                                        -- K'dvarin Urswhl'at